“Great question,” Nick began. “These hams didn’t come from Spain. They came from Spanish-breed pigs that were acorn-fed and cured right here in the Appalachian Mountains!”

Nick took in the wide eyes of his audience and continued.

“There’s a little island off the coast of Savannah called Ossabaw Island. A few centuries ago, my people, the Spaniards, decided to do a little exploring and came over this way,” Nick said smiling. “They brought pigs with them, the descendants of today’s true Iberian pigs, and left them on the island for the next wave of Spaniards to hunt and eat. At some point we stopped coming, and the pigs learned to thrive on the island on their own. The locals call those pigs Ozzies, short for Ossabaw.”

Nick stood in the center of the room with cameras both focused on him and on the faces of his guests. It was exactly where he liked to be, the center of attention, the focal point of culinary delights and connecting people to what he called real food. Not the tasteless garbage that he looked down on in America as people slurped and shoved paper bagfuls of trash into their mouths while driving, thinking they were eating.

“A farmer raised and cured these in the southern Appalachian Mountains,” Nick added, “just like my father did in Spain, and his father before him.” A producer for The Food Channel stood in the back of the room and signaled Nick, indicating they should sit. “Now please, let’s take our seats and enjoy a marvelous dinner.” Nick concluded. “We can talk more during dinner.”

As the members moved to one of the two very long rectangular tables on each side of the house, Rose walked to the centerpiece with John and several others who wanted a final glimpse of the star attraction. Rose zeroed her eyes on the head of the pig, taking in its expression and trying to decide if it had been happy or sad when it lived. She was far from a vegan, but she knew that P.E.T.A. stood for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Certainly any vegan would have sprinted far away from the centerpiece by now, she thought, as she eyed the lonely gentleman who had questioned Nick on the treatment of animals. As she thought of her conversation the day before with Angelica about factory farming, she leaned closer to examine the pig’s head with John and others watching. A cameraman followed her right index finger as it touched right between the pig’s eyes.

“What is this?” Rose asked herself and those around her. They all looked closely at the shape of the letter X that intersected right between the pig’s eyes.

“I dunno,” John said. “Maybe it split there during roasting or something.” He had long been a vegetarian for health rather than for animal cruelty reasons, but John couldn’t hide his grimace at the gruesome incision.

“Looks like someone marked it with a knife,” another man said as he hoisted a glass of champagne to his lips.

“Well,” John said, “I wouldn’t want that job! Marking a pig while he was still alive. I mean, look at the tusks coming out of that thing’s mouth. That thing could kill a man, easy.”

John took Rose by the hand and led her toward one of the tables where the wine flowed freely and the servers stood ready to plate the first course. Naturally, much of the table’s conversation touched on sales and marketing throughout the dinner, but John skillfully brought the discussion to family and personal issues as often as he could. Rose was grateful to John for yet another loving act that so many husbands wouldn’t think to do or be able to do. Underneath the table she took his right hand with her left as she gushed about her girls to a new mother seated across from her.

Talking about the girls made her realize how much she cherished them and her life with them and John. She was eager to leave on vacation the next morning because the sooner she left, the sooner she would return to that life. It was that thought, and not the taste of the food, that put the Mona Lisa smile on her face as she deeply inhaled the moldy aroma and savored another slice of ham.

Chapter 22

Blake held Angelica’s hand and walked across the blacktop parking lot of the Sandy Creek Baptist Church for the first time in a very long time. Since before the miscarriage, he concluded, as he tried to recall his last visit to church that wasn’t on Easter or Christmas. It was a typical small country church, but plenty big enough for the Warwoman community. A white clapboard house of worship with a steeple reaching for the heavens from above the front entrance. Five, wide steps led up to the church entrance for those who could walk. For those who couldn’t, a new wheelchair ramp sloped from the right side to the landing platform at the top of the stairs.

Two men of Native American descent stood at the base of the ramp and talked with an elderly woman who resembled Barbara Bush. One of the men dropped his head as Angelica cast a gaze upon him in passing. Charles Weaver, the eldest man, held Angelica’s stare and nodded imperceptibly.

The elderly woman, Sylvia Jackson, spoke up. “Why the hush?”

Tom, a pudgy man with stringy gray hair and inflated cheeks, turned to Sylvia. “She’s a witch,” he whispered.

“Why, that’s nonsense,” Sylvia said looking as if she was in shock. “Well, that girl has been going to this church right on her whole life. She’s an absolute angel, she is.”

Tom kicked some gravel around and grunted. “Hmm. A witch I’m telling you,” he repeated. “I could tell you some stories about her.” Charles stared down at him.

“Why on God’s green earth would you say that?” Sylvia pressed. Tom leaned over the railing to see if Angelica was within earshot. She and Blake had already walked toward the front.

“First off, her grandmother was a witch too!” Tom said.

“Hmm,” Charles grunted as he cast an incredulous gaze at Tom.

Sylvia rolled her eyes and asked, “Oh, so now everyone’s a witch?”

Tom raised a finger and pointed it directly at Sylvia. “Well answer me this. What kind of woman buries her granddaughter ALIVE?” Sylvia’s mouth hung open as Tom continued. “Yep. Stuck her in a hole and covered her with dirt, gave her only a hollow cane to breath through. When she was only six or seven years old!”

Charles stared down at Tom and snorted with disapproval, “Hmm.”

“Then,” Tom continued, “old granny puts leaves on top of where she buried her own granddaughter, alive mind you, and sets the leaves afire. After the fire dies off, she yanks her granddaughter out of the ground and says now she’s a Cherokee priest with supernatural ability!”

“That’s—that can’t be true,” Sylvia said.

The elder man, tall and very weathered, spoke up. “That part is true,” Charles said. “That girl is my great niece. The grandmother Tom speaks of was my sister. But the girl is no witch.”

“Is too,” Tom said. “I seen her one time use her magic to save a boy from drowning, right here on Warwoman Creek.” Tom pointed up the road toward a widening in the creek.

“That doesn’t make her a witch,” Charles said, folding his arms across his chest.

“Does so,” Tom continued. “We’s having a potluck dinner up the road. We’d had a ton of rain and this boy slipped off the bank. Them rapids took him under and swept him clean over them boulders. Everyone was in a panic but I watched that witch. She walked right over to the edge of the river and stared straight at that boy. She took her fingers and started twirling some magic beads on her neck and kept on chanting a spell.”

Sylvia was now trying her best to record every word in her memory so she could command attention at the following week’s gossip circle. Tom continued the story. “I watched her and that girl didn’t blink once. Nary a time. And you know what happened? Just then a tree leaned over and hung some branches right down in front of that boy so he could grab a hold of!”